ITV Hub

ITV turns to the X factor

How refreshing it is to hear ITV being negative about its own online service, ITV Hub. Apparently, it is clunky, looks dated, isn’t a destination, and there is nothing on it. All pretty much true, and expressed only a good chunk of a decade after all those things were clear to the UK consumer. Why this sudden honesty? The imminent launch of Hub’s replacement, of course: ITVX will debut on 8 December.

Channel 4 announces trial of new SVoD service

All4 logo (Credit: Channel 4)

All4 has grown in popularity in recent years with an increasing collection of box sets that users are able to watch on-demand, including Chewing Gum, National Treasure and Peep Show

Testing of Channel 4’s new SVoD service, All4+ begins in December with a sample group participating in a beta test using a web-only version of the service.

The beta test will include offering the ad-free service to the sample group for £3.99 per month, the same price as ITV’s Hub+.

The horn of plenty: TV in a hyperconnected world

The panel (L-R): Hugh Dennis, Sue Unerman, Jim Ryan, Simon Pitts and Ben McOwen Wilson  panel (L-R): Hugh Dennis, Sue Unerman, Jim Ryan, Simon Pitts and Ben McOwen Wilson (Credit: Paul Hampartsoumian)

Comedian Hugh Dennis aired the thoughts of many trying to navigate the new television landscape when he introduced this session. In a video diary shown to conference delegates, he was seen stuck inside a room for a month. His task was to watch all the content available to modern audiences. 

“Watching telly used to be so easy,” he complained. “Four channels, maybe five – everyone watched the same thing in the same place at the same time, unless your family was at the cutting edge of technology and had a VCR.” 

The lost generation of TV news watchers

Carol Thompson, 26, spends her day battling to get the attention of a classroom of small children. She gets up at 6:15am, runs to work, starts preparing for meetings and adds her finishing touches to lesson plans. At 9:00pm she relaxes on the sofa. Watching the news is the last thing on her mind.

“I generally watch television that I have recorded, rather than watching anything live or simply watching things because they happen to be on,” explains Thompson, whose viewing choices tend towards All 4, iPlayer, ITV Hub and Sky Go.

Your must-watch catch up TV

Catch these gems before they disappear.

Grace and Frankie

 

The slick, silver-haired comedy from Friends creator Martha Kauffman is back for a second season.

Straight-laced Grace and free spirit Frankie are both happily married women when their husbands, Robert and Sol, announce that they are leaving them – for each other.

Catch up TV picks

Marcella

1. Kabul Kitchen 

 

Based on true story of Marc Victor, a Radio France Internationale journalist, who ran a restaurant in Kabul for French expatriates until 2008, Kabul Kitchen is a hilarious French-language comedy taking a sideways look at life in the Afghan city.

Jacky runs the popular restaurant, Kabul Kitchen, and all appears to be going well… until his daughter arrived to do some humanitarian work.

UK leads in on demand viewing

Channel four, All 4, On demand, catch up,

Live television remains the most popular way of watching TV in the UK despite a large drop of 4.9% in 2013-14, research by Ofcom shows.

As many as 70% (31m) of UK adults will be watching on demand television this month from free-to-air providers such as BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub and All 4. This figure places the UK ahead of all other major European countries, as well as big TV consuming nations Australia, Japan and the USA.